Digital sheet music FAQs

All our music is in digital (PDF) format. When you buy a digital download, you'll receive an email (within a few seconds) with a link to download your music.

What if I lose my music?
When you make a purchase, you'll receive a download link that'll be valid for 12 months. If you need to download your music after 1 year, just get in touch and we'll send a fresh download link. We'd recommend you make a back-up of your music to a memory stick.

Can I make a back-up of my music?
Yes you can, and we would encourage you to make a back-up of any music you buy, either to cd-rom or memory stick.

Your music seems awfully reasonable. (The Book for All Occasions is only £25 for 50 pieces). Am I still getting a quality product?
I invest a lot of time researching my arrangements, finding original scores, writing the arrangements, typesetting them to a high standard, and designing eye-catching artwork. However, I have a big enough customer base (many of them who have bought pretty much everything I've written over the last decade or so!), to ensure that I can earn a living selling my music at a price that is very affordable to my customers.

As a one-man-band, I don't have the overheads of many of the larger brass publishing companies, so can afford to keep my prices low.

Do I need any special software to view and print my music?
All of my music is presented as PDF files contained within Zip folders. You just need a (free) copy of Adobe Reader (or Preview on a Mac) to view and print your music.

When downloading your music, you'll find it is compressed into a .Zip folder. Newer versions of Windows and Mac OSX will automatically un-zip this for you once the download is complete. Otherwise, you may have to download an expander programme (such as WinZip, Win Rar or StuffIt Expander) to access the PDFs.

Can I open my downloaded music on an iPad?
Yes... but you'll need to download it to a desktop or laptop computer first. iPads can't handle .zip folders, but once you've decompressed your music, you can transfer it to you iPad. The easiest way is to email the PDFs to yourself.

NB. the brass band arrangements are not compressed into .zip folders, meaning you can open them directly from the download link onto your iPad.

We use a different combination of instruments. Can the arrangements be adapted to suit our group?If the instruments you use aren't covered in the plethora of transposed parts I provide, then I can usually tweak the arrangements, for a fee. Generally, I prefer to send you the Sibelius files, so you can tweak them yourself!

Can you provide Sibelius files of the music I've bought?Generally speaking, yes. Please email me on matt@bigshinybrass.com for more info.

A globetrotting collection of festive songs from five continents, arranged for junior brass

Who is Matt Kingston?

Matt started writing brass music in 2002, when members of a brass band he used to play in suggested he have a go at arranging something for them. It wasn't very good (the tenor horns didn't know what E major was), but luckily that didn't put him off and he got better at it quite quickly!

Today, his brass arrangements are played and loved around the world, in particular his music for brass quintets and junior bands.

In 2009, Matt founded Big Shiny Brass to sell all his music as downloadable PDF files.

Matt is also very active in the world of choral music, conducting several Dorset choirs, and composing under the pen name Matthew Coleridge.